Rwandan Cooking

Long time no blog! I have started a few, but I've failed at completing them. I hope to back to them soon, but for now here is a quick photo tour of cooking in Rwanda.

The title of this blog my be a bit misleading. This is not a blog about Rwandan food (which deserves its own blog), but rather a blog about the food I cook in Rwanda. I have never been more challenged in my cooking than I have been here in Rwanda. The main challenges come in two forms; the first is in the limited variety of food available and the second is in the cost.

I'm fortunate to have come from a family that really enjoys food. Both my Mother and Father are great cooks and they both have totally different styles. My Father is an Asian loving soup maker and my Mother is a bit more traditional. I began baking at an early age and by the age of 8 I was baking chocolate chip cookies on my own.

Living aboard has taught me to be flexible and creative. Some people pack a first aid kit, I pack a spice kit. I never know what herbs and spices I will find and not find so it's better to be safe than sorry. My basic kit contains, Mexican chili, cumin, basil, oregano, onion powder, garlic powder, curry, dill, thyme and lots of stock. If it is a longer trip I will pack just about whatever I have and use up the last ounce in my suitcase. I used to pack hair products, but really isn't what ponytails are for?

The basic fresh ingredients in Rwanda include potatoes, green bananas, green beans, carrots, onions, garlic, eggplant, green peas, zucchini, green peppers, and cabbage. As for fruit you're looking at passion fruit, bananas (both the big and small variety), mango and pineapple. When it comes to meat you can easily find goat and beef. Pork is a bit harder to find and you don't want to eat the chicken here. The fish is mostly fishy tilapia from local fish farms. As for dairy, it easy to come across milk, yogurt, Rwandan Gouda and buttermilk. Not bad you say? Well really that's it anything not on this list is exotic and can be difficult to find. We get very excited about broccoli.

Our first meals came in the form of lots and lots of soups. One of our more infamous soups was the result of ordering 3 whole chickens instead of the pieces of chicken at our local pub. It was also the last time we have ordered chicken.


Swedish ice cream buckets make great spice kits.







The purchase of our grill has greatly advanced the food items we are able to cook. Our favorites include grilled veggies and pizza. The tricky part of making the pizza is to get the cheese nice and melty. Our grill was purchased at the local metal works shop. They turn old barrels into grills, fish fryers, coal shovels and dinning room tables.

Some of the most exciting discoveries I've made include how to make sour cream, how easy it is to make pickles (using cumbers from our garden), yogurt makes a great substitute for many things, flat bread is fantastic and easy to make, green beans can go in anything!


Joss precooks one side of the pizza.

Note the grilled eggplant a pizza topping staple.


















The finished product here is a beef fajita pizza. With some feta brought in from Ireland.















Our flavors have greatly improved since the planting of a few herbs and spices. The fresh lettuce has been a great addition to our meals. This is the start of our city garden. We have grown corn, tomatoes, herbs, cucumber, zucchini, bell pepper and lettuce. It will be sad to say goodbye, but we hope the next tenants will be appreciative.

Week 1 in Kigali

The first week has been eventful, yet not so eventful. Emily and I were whisked to the office on Monday morning, however not knowing that Rwanda is one hour behind Uganda we thought they were an hour late in picking us up!

Up to this point we had been told very little about the office, staff and capacity. So we were taken aback when we pulled into a large 2 story house with the a sign out the front. It turns out that there are about 30 local staff. We were given the grand tour and warmly welcomed by everyone.

We had lovely meetings with the Programs Director and HR man. The country director was out of the office as she was in Hanoi for a governance seminar. We have since been settling into the office and finding our respective place within the office. We walk to lunch each day and eat a buffet style of Rwandan food, which consist mainly of “Irish” potatoes, rice, plantains, salad, soup and either a beef or goat stew. Not bad food, but the starch based diet takes some getting used to.

On Wednesday and Thursday Emily was taken to field and shown a few AA project in the East, which consisted of a new school and toilets, water distribution and sponsorship programs. She is now writing reports based on the interviews they conducted. It looks like I will get a chance to visit the field on Monday and Tuesday. We will be heading to the Northern Province to investigate the possibility of implementing a new project. I’m waiting for more details, but it will be dealing with Food Rights and Women’s Rights (which is streamlined throughout all programs).


The Northern Province is where the volcanoes and mountain gorillas are located. Of course we won’t be doing any gorilla tacking, but it is a very mountainous region and the landscape is supposed to be stunning. I’ll be sure to bring my camera and to get few shots along the way. I’ve read a lot about the Volcanoes National Park and I’m very excited to be heading that way.

We haven’t had much time to settle into our new place, but we are getting comfortable with our new neighborhood. We are located just down the street from the American Embassy and the main Kigali police station. They are in the process of completing the new asphalt road outside our home. It should cut down on the amount of dust blown into our home.

As we were warned things in Kigali are not cheap! Kigali is very isolated, Goma being the closet city just on the other side of Lake Kivu and closet city of consequence being Kampala a 10 hour drive to the north. So things that do make their way here are very expensive. Electricity is also a major issue here and is very expensive. We have to prepay and enter a code into our meter. We have a hot water heater for our showers but only turn it on for about 10 min before our shower. All of our wash is hand done in buckets out the back. The tap water is safe to drink if you boil it ahead of time, but they put chlorine in the water, so you have to get over the taste. Most of the coffee in this part of Africa is awful, but we have found a local brand that is very nice, but it is about $6 a bag! Time for me to get a paying job!


Last night we meet up with an American from Seattle that is setting up an IT business based in Kigali. He took us to an expat type pizza place. It was nice to enjoy something a bit closer to home. However, the African cheese has done a number on our bellies, and it make take a few goes to get used to it! We are starting to meet a number of people living here and I’m sure in not time we will feel like “locals”! That said our Kinyrawandan needs A LOT of work. We are happy to have learned to say “I want”. Our first fully sentence being, “I want cabbage”. The first time we put this to use was at our local, where we were able to change it to “I want chicken”, with the intention of receiving 3 pieces of chicken. Unfortunately an hour later and many confused looks between us and the chef we were given 3 whole chickens! Thankfully we had had a few beers and the result was us laughing as we each attempted to consume our chickens! All is not wasted as they are waiting in the fridge and will be turned into a huge pot of chicken soup! Lesson learned!

Tonight our boss is taking the 3 of us “out”. We don’t really know what this means or will entail, but I’m sure we will have some stories to tell.

Photos of Uganda have been posted on my Facebook and Rwandan photos are soon to come!